CHA’s Wilson, PC’s Worley excel, but Malvern wins track title

Ian Miller clears a hurdle for Chestnut Hill Academy. The senior won bronze medals in the 300-meter hurdles and the long jump, and finished fifth in the 110-meter hurdles. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

1600 and 3200 meters) and Penn Charter sophomore Daryl Worley (100, 200, 400 meters) gave big boosts to the Blue Devils and Quakers at last Saturday’s Inter-Ac League track and field championships, but neither school was able to emerge with the team title.

Leading at the completion of the field events, although not by an overwhelming margin, defending champ Malvern Prep widened the gap against meet host PC in the running events and claimed the 2011 Inter-Ac crown.

Going up 29-20 in the jumping and throwing contests, Malvern finished the day with 68 team points, and Penn Charter accumulated 50. CHA, the runner-up in 2010, came in third this year, scoring more than half of its 39 points with one-two finishes by Wilson and senior Michael Fuery in the 1600 and 3200.

First and second place in the pole vault went to sophomore Jared Whitman and freshman Matt Miller of Germantown Academy, which finished fourth with 30 points. Haverford School was fifth in the team standings with 22 points, and Episcopal Academy was sixth with 14.

CHA’s Wilson broke a 1972 meet record in the 3200, with his time of nine minutes, 33.80 seconds eclipsing the old mark of 9:42.20 set by Malvern’s John Clark.

“He had a typical Dustin day,” CHA coach Paul Hines said of his reliable distance ace. “He was conservative in the mile, then in the 800 he had his work cut out for him because [Jamie} Gentile from Malvern was fresh. Gentile gave him a race but Dustin was able to hold him off down the last straightaway and set a school record. Then he comes back to set a meet record in the 3200.”

After the field events portion of the meet was finished, Penn Charter coach Steve Bonnie was encouraged.

“I was worried we might get blown out by Malvern in the field events, but we were able to hang in there,” he said, referring to a manageable 29-20 gap between the teams after the jumps and throws. “When DeShawn Hollis-Baker was able to win the triple jump, especially by as much as he did, it was a nice surprise.”

Hollis-Baker also collected a silver medal in the high jump for the Quakers. PC stumbled in the early track events, though. The Quakers didn’t score at all in the 110 meter hurdles, and were outpointed by the Malvern Friars in the 100 meter dash. They were now behind the leaders by a 43-26 tally.

“That put us in a hole we couldn’t get out of, because there weren’t that many events where we could make up that much ground,” Bonnie explained. “If we’d been close to them going into the mile relay I thought we might have squeaked out a win, but Malvern was good enough to just beat us before that.”

Worley’s domination of the sprints was a highlight for the meet hosts, and he finished up by anchoring PC’s winning relay team, running behind senior Kolonji Smith and freshmen James Biggs-Frazier and Corey Kelley. Another freshman, Charlie Hoyt, impressed his veteran coach with a fourth-place effort in the 800 meters, just four seconds off of the winning time by CHA’s Wilson.

After garnering a third of their total points through the efforts of their young pole vaulters, the GA Patriots chipped away to pick up points here and there. They closed out the meet with a bronze medal in the relay, thanks to sophomore Max Huang-Hobbs, senior Lamont Jackson, sophomore Ben Ritz, and senior Carter Skeel.

Hines, the Chestnut Hill coach, had made some precise predictions before the meet.

“We thought we could probably score 39 points and get third place and that’s what we did,” he revealed, “although not exactly in the ways we thought we would.”

Senior Colin Kelly met expectations by snagging the silver medal in the shot put, but Hines knew that overall, “We weren’t as strong in the field events as we’ve been in the past. Obviously we were going with our strength, which is our distance runners. Michael Fuery had a great day for us. He had a PR [personal record] by four seconds in the mile, and got second in the two mile, as well.”

The Inter-Ac’s George Greenwood Award for the top individual scoring effort went to Malvern senior Rich D’Ambrosio, who won both hurdling events and the long jump, and was second in the 100 meter dash.

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